Anthropic S-1: Does It Book AWS and Google Cloud Revenue Gross or Net?
Gross. Anthropic's S-1 says it acts as principal when customers buy Claude through cloud provider marketplaces, so it records the full amount the customer pays as revenue and the cloud provider's fee as an operating expense. Those sales made up about 48% of the $16,286 million in revenue Anthropic reported for the six months ended June 30, 2026.
Key takeaways
- Anthropic gives three reasons: it contracts with the customer, is "primarily responsible" for the service, and sets the price.
- Cloud provider (CSP) marketplaces carried about 48% of H1 2026 revenue and 58% of net accounts receivable at June 30, 2026.
- The CSP fee sits in operating expenses, and Note 8 places channel partner costs outside cost of revenue.
What the S-1 says
Anthropic, PBC filed its public registration statement on Form S-1 on October 26, 2026. Its concentration note gives the marketplace share of revenue (revenue in millions; H1 figures unaudited):
| FY 2023 | FY 2024 | FY 2025 | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 41 | 386 | 4,585 | 1,163 | 16,286 |
| Share through CSP marketplaces | ~11% | ~32% | ~47% | ~44% | ~48% |
The revenue policy in Note 1 treats a marketplace sale as the same "single promise" as a direct sale through Anthropic's apps and APIs. It concludes that "the Company is the principal and recognizes revenue on a gross basis because the Company has a direct contractual relationship with customers, is primarily responsible for providing the intelligence service to customers, and establishes pricing."
The note doesn't name the marketplaces. The business section says Claude is available through Amazon Bedrock, Google's Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Microsoft Foundry, where Anthropic keeps "direct contractual relationships with our customers while paying a fee to each CSP."
The accounting, step by step
ASC 606-10-55-36 through 55-40 set the test.
1. Identify the customer. A cloud provider that buys and resells a model becomes the vendor's customer. Anthropic describes a different setup: its CSPs act "as collection agents," and the platforms "bill end customers, collect payments on our behalf, and remit such amounts to us, net of applicable platform and other fees."
2. Identify the specified service (55-36 and 55-36A). Anthropic names one: the intelligence service, identical in every channel.
3. Assess control before transfer (55-37 and 55-37A). An entity is a principal if it controls the specified service before the customer receives it. The S-1 says the CSPs "do not obtain control of the Company's intelligence service at any point prior to transfer to the customer." That sentence carries the conclusion.
4. Weigh the indicators (55-39 and 55-39A). The S-1 cites two of the three: primary responsibility for the service and discretion over price. It skips inventory risk. Paragraph 55-39A says indicators "may be more or less relevant," and we read inventory risk as minor for a usage-priced service with nothing to stock.
5. Set aside who collects the cash. ASU 2016-08 removed credit risk from the indicators, so the cash partners hold before remitting it doesn't decide the question.
6. Measure. A principal recognizes the gross consideration (55-37B). An agent recognizes its fee or commission (55-38).
Revenue recognition doesn't appear among the S-1's critical accounting estimates, and Ernst & Young's 2025 critical audit matters cover loss contingencies and the fair value of the convertible notes.
Fina ran the same question against the filing: Fina's cited analysis of how Anthropic books AWS and Google Cloud revenue.
Where the CSP fee lands
Since 2025, Anthropic's income statement presents expenses by nature, with no cost of revenue or gross profit line. Fees paid to channel partners sit in "sales, marketing, and partnerships," which reached $3,168 million in H1 2026, or 19% of revenue, against $120 million (10%) a year earlier. Anthropic attributes $2.7 billion of the increase to higher channel partner fees. The S-1 doesn't say how much went to the CSPs.
Note 8 regroups expenses by function. Channel partner costs land in sales and marketing ($3,808 million for H1 2026), and compute for customer-serving workloads makes up "substantially all" of cost of revenue ($2,380 million). We read the CSP fee as a channel partner cost, so a gross margin built from Note 8 excludes it. Under net reporting, the fee would come out of revenue instead. Before you compare Anthropic with a company that books marketplace sales net, put both on the same basis.
Concentration and the Amazon and Google overlap
The S-1 reports the marketplace share as a channel concentration. Customer concentration is separate: no single customer exceeded 10% of revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2026, and the top five made up about 25%. We read that split as following from the principal conclusion, since the end customer is Anthropic's customer.
The same companies play other roles. The S-1 says "Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, through their respective affiliates, have made significant equity investments" in Anthropic and that the CSPs "are also our customers." In those direct purchases the CSP is the customer, and the marketplace analysis doesn't apply. Certain CSPs also hold non-voting convertible preferred stock and convertible notes; our post on the $72.4 billion convertible note charge covers Amazon's notes. The S-1 doesn't call the CSPs related parties. It discloses the overlap in the concentration note and risk factors.
What the next filings must show
- ASC 606 disclosures. ASC 606-10-50-12(c) asks for a description of promised services "highlighting any performance obligations to arrange for another party to transfer goods or services," and 50-17 asks for the judgments that "significantly affect the determination of the amount and timing of revenue." Our guide to the S-1 revenue note covers both.
- Fresh interim statements if effectiveness slips. As a non-accelerated filer, Anthropic gets 135 days on its June 30 statements under Rule 3-12 of Regulation S-X. If the S-1 isn't effective before November 12, 2026, an amendment must add September 30 interim statements, which would refresh the marketplace share.
Our ASC 606 five-step walkthrough covers the wider model.
Read the full analysis
Fina's cited analysis of how Anthropic books AWS and Google Cloud revenue maps the S-1's revenue policy and concentration note to the ASC 606 principal-versus-agent test.
